OT: USA lands on Moon for first time in >50 years

Submitted by superstringer on February 22nd, 2024 at 6:46 PM

Space, bitches...

Today, the USA landed(*) on the Moon for the first time since early 1970s. A private U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, landed their six-legged vehicle Odysseus about 300 mi. from the South Pole of the Moon. It was mostly but not entirely funded by NASA, but is considered a fully private vehicle. NASA paid for 8 of the 12 payloads, but other payloads included some artist's figurines plus Columbia (the sportswear company) sent up special insulator material for "testing."

As I type this, "landed" need to be put in quotes. The vehicle is on the surface, and it sending a signal that is weaker than expected. So it's not known what state the vehicle is in. A couple weeks ago, the Japanese landed on their nose (seriously, if you didn't see the pics, go google them), so, who knows. But the company is taking credit for a landing on the Moon.

C'mon, other than Intuitive Machines got their launch ride on a Falcon 9, this doesn't involve you-know-who, so, it's all good.

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sharklover

February 23rd, 2024 at 2:18 AM ^

You could easily say the same thing about the Apollo program. It was capsules and landers that were built by aerospace corporations flying atop rockets that were also built by corporations. NASA provided the specifications and slapped their logo on the finished product, but space travel and exploration has always been a public/private partnership.

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yossarians tree

February 23rd, 2024 at 12:18 PM ^

I've been following some of these recent attempts by various countries to land a craft on the moon. Many of them have been unsuccessful. My overriding thought is that not only did a bunch of brush-cut, short-sleeve-wearing, slide rule dorks put multiple modules on the moon 50 FREAKING YEARS AGO, but they did it with men inside, and the men got out and walked around up there!

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Sam1863

February 23rd, 2024 at 4:59 AM ^

I'm not sure that's a completely fair analogy. Voldemort actually cast the evil spells that resulted in all the terrible things on his resume. He didn't buy the dark magic cast by other wizards and then stick his name on it.

Now, as far as charm and personality goes, the comparison is a lot closer.

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MMBbones

February 22nd, 2024 at 9:16 PM ^

Surprised this wasn't posted earlier. Michigan has a fairly decent aerospace engineering department. I always thought they were the weirdos in the classrooms next door, but that's just me. 

Here's a nice link for details:

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/science-environment-68349490?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

But for something much more realistic, anyone else watching the latest Dune sequence?

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Meteorite00

February 22nd, 2024 at 11:20 PM ^

Thank you for calling Koonses “some artist’s figurines.” I’m imaging a lander being knocked off course by the force of dozens of balloon dogs exploding in the vacuum of space. 

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ShadowStorm33

February 23rd, 2024 at 9:25 AM ^

The thing that shocks me is that we hadn't done it in the past 50 years. Like, was the thought that we already had a bunch of manned landings, so it wasn't necessary to send any more probes/landers/whatever and instead focus on other targets? With the number of missions we've sent elsewhere in that time, I would have assumed at least one went to the moon...

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